Project

India’s first green Building

Mumbai is experiencing a huge building boom. Planning and construction has begun on hundreds of new mid and high-rise buildings in the city’s central business district, in the former mill lands and Dharavi.

The most conspicuous is the Palais Royale, a tall hotel, commercial and residential tower. With a height of over 320 m, it is set to dominate the city’s skyline after completion in 2010. Developer Shree Ram Urban Infrastructure has achieved LEED platinum certification from the Indian Green Building Council, setting new standards in water and energy management, waste recycling and reduced carbon emissions. LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – is an internationally recognised Green Building Rating System developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. It provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction.

MEVA formwork and climbing systems are used for all on-site concrete works – including cores, slabs and walls – using cutting-edge technology in order to deliver a quality product on time, safely and efficiently.

Accuracy, safety, speed and ease of operation place MEVA’s hydraulic MAC system in pole position

Two independent systems are running on lift and staircase shafts. MAC – short for MEVA Automatic Climbing – provides complete protection for workers with full cladding surrounding the external hanging platforms. The working space inside the external platforms is generous. No external secondary platforms are required on the MAC. This allows the contractor to follow closely with the slab construction. The MAC system is supported by jacking and shear key beams inside the shafts. They sit on these beams and lift the whole system in one continuous operation. The MAC’s long-stroke, heavy-duty hydraulic system has a capacity of 20 tons per ram and a non-return ratchet that locks on each cylinder. The beams rest inside pockets set in the walls that were previously cast. Thus, the climbing load is carried by concrete that has already set: one of the system’s most conspicuous benefits in terms of safety and speed.

Easy, fast and precise setting up, adjusting in 3 directions: tolerance of only +/- 3 mmInside the MAC system an intermediary platform gives access to the 3-way adjustment devices. The latter give the MAC system an extreme accuracy of +/- 3 mm. It also allows the system to be quickly plumbed and speeds up the stripping and setting-up process. The top of the ram rests against the beams of the main grid.

MEVA AluFix hand-set formwork allows easy handlingMEVA’s leading hand-set system, the AluFix wall formwork, is being used both on the site to form walls up to heights of 3 m, and as a part of the climbing systems. In the MAC units, the suspension of the panels connects directly to the main grid covering the whole system.

Speed and ease of operation: shutters moved by hand, without force and without special toolsDuring steel fixing the external panels or shutters are retracted by hand and give access to the core structure. An intermediary working platform set up at mid-height allows for safe fixing. Another key benefit of the MAC system is the possibility of using drop panels for confined spaces where retraction is not practical.

Top platform free from obstructionsSince the jacking points for the rams are located under the main grid, the top platform of the MAC is free from jacking masts and other mechanical obstacles. This provides ample working space for concreters. The platform can also be used to store craned materials such as rebars. Open voids are minimized on the top platform while concreting chutes ensure that concrete is not spilled inside the system. Placing booms can also be integrated into the MAC system.

Burj Khalifa slab technology on the Palais Royale tower: slabs follow immediately as the cores climb skywardEvery day slab areas of different sizes are poured immediately below the climbing core. Here, the same MevaDec system that so successfully handled the world’s tallest tower – the Burj Khalifa – is being used. It is completely crane-independent and easy to handle by hand with just a small team of workers. The MevaDec drop head and its quick-lowering system allow stripping the panels and beams while the props remain for reshoring.

100 % wood-free, all-plastic facing with no re-facing needed: Green building at high speedConventional plywood facing survives only limited re-uses and needs to be replaced and disposed of as dangerous waste (due to the phenolic resin coating). The Palais Royale jobsite would have had to deal with this in all formwork areas many times. Delays in the construction process, an enormous logistic effort and much unnecessary plywood waste would have been the consequence. In all its systems MEVA uses an all-plastic, 100 % wood-free facing, which never needs to be replaced, can be repaired on site and is 100 % recyclable. Thus, there will be no downtimes and no interruption of work flow.